


Light It Up

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, Domestic, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Hanukkah, Hanukkah Fluff, Interfaith, Jewish Character, Jewish Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 04:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9055453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: Hanukkah in the Stein household was interesting, indeed. Oh, and full of donuts. Lots of donuts.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [messofthejess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/messofthejess/gifts).



> Literally no one can take away the fact that Stein is Jewish. No one.

Stein woke up on the 24th of December the same way he always did: grudgingly. Sleep, so long ago a foreign, unfriendly thing, had become welcome and comfortable when he shared his bed with one Marie Mjolnir, soon to be Marie Stein, by the ring on her finger gleaming sweetly. Not that sleeping in the same bed as Marie was always a _treat_ : the woman was a starfish if he’d ever seen one manifested in human form, taking up the grand majority of the bed with arms and legs and clinging tightly as a vice to him. But it was simply her presence that lulled him, the warmth of her skin, the flickering of her slumbering soul edged so close to him, so naturally, that made him feel safe enough to nap.

So, when he woke up, grudgingly, to an empty bed, his brows furrowed immediately. Sitting up, sheets pooling down to his lap, he stretched and squinted, focusing his soul perception. By the look of the clock, it was a bit past noon. Ungodly, really. Time was an illusion, naturally, but that didn’t mean anything before 2pm was considered good in his book. But, of course, that also meant that Marie had let him sleep in. Which either indicated that she was kidnapped in the middle of the night or he had done something to earn her favor. 

Or, as he realized just a second later, it was a Holiday. 

Hanukkah. How could he forget?

When he located her soul, down in what she had determined as his kitchen, before her merely a cobwebbed room he would use the fridge to store specimens for, his muscles unknotted. He had been told that caring for another person was a good thing, strong, but he was so unaccustomed to _worry._ Especially considering the currently very pregnant state his partner was in. Considering it was a holiday and they were all off, unless actual Armageddon was upon them, she was meant to stay in bed and give her ankles a rest.

Stubborn woman. He roused from bed, yawning and scratching at the scar scored diagonally on his torso, feeling the breeze of the perpetually drafty lab get to him. Maybe he should start wearing pants to bed. As much as Marie would protest it.

He smirked at the thought, only snatching up his lab coat to shrug on to cover up, padding his way through the lab and into the kitchen where Marie was humming and cooking…something. The smell seemed familiar, but like a memory in smoke. He shrugged it off. He knew scent was powerful to memory, he’d get it eventually. At the moment, the only focal point to him was Marie, holding a fork and obscuring the bowls of what she was cooking.  

Slowly, Stein crept up on her, ensuring that his feet made no sound on the hard floor. The lack of shoes certainly added to stealth, and Marie was none the wiser when he waited for her to put her fork down before he threw his arms around her waist, startling her so bad that she would have surely fallen over had he not been there for support.

“FRANK!” she shrilled, and he snickered at the change in octave. Whenever she was frustrated or he surprised her like that, she’d always go up at least a few notes.

“Good morning,” he replied, feeling her spin in his grasp, her singular eye already glaring, and the thick scar tissue over her missing eye seeming to look at him in a particularly judgmental way. His grin twisted slightly as she simply sighed.

“You’re going to scare me into an early labor,” she accused, and Stein let his hand drift to her belly.

“No. I think Ein is snug in there.”

“Dork,” she said simply, her gaze roving over him. “Naked dork. Couldn’t find your pants?”

“I assume you like me best without them.”

“Ah, but you assume I like you at all,” she teased, and he lifted a brow.

“You seemed to like me plenty last night.”

Pink was a good color on her. “Shut up.”

“Just remember that you came willingly,” he replied cheerfully, grin turning more lewd at the innuendo.

Marie rolled her eye. “I _always_ come willingly.”

“I should hope so,” he said, and she shook her head good-naturedly.  

“Had you ever any doubts?”

“Not with how vocal you are, Sonnenschein.”

Ah, there was that smile. The nickname, or, petname, as she insisted, always did the trick. She graced him with the upturning of her lips before she turned back around in his hold, pressing her back against his chest.

“You might wanna step back. The oil is kind of hot,” she said, and reached for a plate she had on the side. 

“What are you making, besides?” he asked, finally peering over her shoulder. His brows furrowed once more. Those looked an awful lot like…

“I…don’t really know how to pronounce it,” Marie admitted, sheepishly, grabbing up the fork on the side and poking at them.

“Sufganiyot,” he provided for her, feeling her nod. Only then did he notice the jam sitting off to the side, the bowl of batter on the counter, the large jug of oil. “They look like what my mother used to make.”

“I miiiiight have called her…for a recipe?”

He was eyeing the bowl of powdered sugar off to the side, the scent finally identified. He remembered, now, the color of bright wrappings of gelt and standing on a chair to light the shamash on their table, something his father would keep a very close eye on, his mother teaching him the prayers.

“Why?” he asked. He’d known Marie since he was a boy. She’d been his…not _date_ , but accompaniment to his bar mitzvah, where she got along like a house on fire with his cousins Miriam and Rebecca,  and had eaten challah bread like a woman deprived, but she’d never celebrated Hanukkah with him, nor any of the other holidays. And he, generally, didn’t do so, either. Not when she was there, not when she was gone. Sure, as a child, he’d often go back to his family’s house, gather together, go to Temple with them. But he’d long let his Star of David, a simple, gleaming pendant hanging on a golden chain, find a home in a clean, well-kept box. He’d long since stopped going to Temple, or wearing a yarmulke.

Marie turned the heat off of the frying pan she was using, finally putting the rest of the donuts in the bowl of finished ones, and reached for a spoon. He remembered that, while never really liking many sweet things, sufganiyot was always something he looked forward to. Latkes were a household staple during Hanukkah, as well.

“Well, it’s Hanukkah,” Marie said, simply. “And it’ll be Christmas Eve, tonight.”

“It will be Hanukkah, tonight, as well. It hasn’t started, yet,” he supplied. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“What?” Marie asked, finally breaking out of his hold and filling the fried donuts with supreme concentration. Stein looked around the kitchen, noting the menorah, a very new addition to the lab, on the table, as well as a blue drip mat beneath it. He blinked. His childhood was coming back to him.

“Why are we celebrating it?”

At that, Marie stopped, the donuts mostly filled and ready to be rolled in sugar, certainly still warm. She looked up at him, confused.

“I mean…you’re Jewish?”

“I’m secular,” he replied. “I haven’t practiced in years.”

Marie chewed at her lip. “Yeah, but…your family is still Jewish. And I’m going to be part of that so…”

“If you feel obligated-“

“No! No, I don’t feel obligated at all! I just…wanted to be part of your culture. I mean, you celebrated St. Lucia’s Day with me.”

Stein shrugged. “You made food, I ate it.”

Marie sighed, finishing off the donuts. “Fine, then I’ll eat these by myself-“

“You don’t have to do that,” he said quickly, and Marie’s lips perked up.

“Oh? Have I found a weak spot, Dr. Stein? Thought you didn’t like sweets.”

“It’s sufganiyot,” he defended, as though the statement was law. Marie shook her head good naturedly and held the plate of finished donuts out to him, insisting he take one. She didn’t expect for him to take the entire plate.

“Oh- you’re impossible,” she muttered, having to get another plate as her fiancé shoved an entire donut in his mouth.

“No, I’m Franken,” he mumbled out, sugar collecting on his lips.

Marie’a fond eye-roll quickly turned into her leaning against the counter, looking at him. And, genuinely, it would be a ridiculous sight to anyone else. Here he was, naked save for a lab coat, munching on donuts the day of Hanukkah, menorah to the side of him. She was sure it would be considered sacrilegious, somewhere. After all, some of his relatives already refused to speak to him just for being involved with a non-Jewish girl, let alone knocking her up out of marriage.

Marie’s hand fluttered down to her stomach. She hadn’t tried a donut, yet. She hoped Ein would like them. Certain foods didn’t agree with her baby, their baby. She didn’t know, really, or rather, she didn’t want to acknowledge why she was putting so much damn emphasis and weight on a _donut_ of all things. The truth was that she was slightly concerned. Golda, Stein’s mother, and she had a good relationship, despite their differences. She wasn’t going to pressure her into converting, hadn’t even breathed a bad word about the fact that she and Stein weren’t married, yet.

But there was still the fact that Stein was Jewish, with a Jewish family who followed Jewish traditions, with a Jewish background, who experienced anti-Semitism while he was in the DWMA, and likely still then, who couldn’t pass as anything _but_ considering his name, his face, his reputation.

And she…wasn’t. She wasn’t, and she was carrying his kid.

The silence was startlingly uncomfortable, something he picked up on, instantly, and he looked at her for a long while.

“What are you thinking of?” he asked, licking at the corner of his mouth where a smattering of powdered sugar had collected. How long had she been in her own head?

“Hm? Oh, nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

Marie sighed. She should know better than to withhold information from Stein. He’d been an interrogator just a few years back. Could still be called into action as one at just a moment’s notice. And though he certainly wouldn’t torture her, he had other ways of making her talk, the damn tease. The _tickler._

“I mean…what will our baby identify as if…if they don’t have this?” she asked, gesturing to the table she’d set up, candles unlit, chocolate gelt coins glittering slightly under the lights, dim. Stein blinked at her.

“Ein will identify as whatever they choose,” Stein replied, as though it were simple.

“I know! I know, and I’m not opposed to that! But…but this is your culture, isn’t it? You had a bar mitzvah and…and Golda wants there to be traditional Jewish rituals in our wedding and- what if our kid doesn’t have that? What if they don’t know who they are or…or where they come from? They’ll be Jewish, too.”

“Not technically,” Stein replied. “Patrilineal descent isn’t upheld in Orthodox Judaism.” Marie looked hurt instantly, and Stein backtracked. “Reform Judaism recognizes it, however. But…Marie, are we raising this child Jewish?”

He was confused. He hadn’t practiced in _years._ A fact his mother was rather uncomfortable but not vocally pressuring about. He didn’t attend Temple. He didn’t recite prayers. He didn’t do any of it, anymore. And Marie, similarly, raised Christian but currently atheist, was in a similar boat. She hadn’t gone to church for well over a decade. If they weren’t raising the child Christian, why raise them Jewish as the default?

“I just.  . .want them to have the things you had, you know? The food and the celebrations and the bar mitzvah…your customs. It’s your people, you know?”

“ _You’re_ my people.”

Marie shook her head after a moment. “But I’m…not. Right? Not in that way. I just feel…”

“You feel as though unless you learn such customs, you cannot provide those things for Ein,” Stein finished for her, and Marie nodded after a moment, waiting until Stein set the bowl of donuts down on the side, coming in close to bring his hands on her hips. She was already showing, growing a hell of a baby bump, and she needed to go out for maternity clothes, soon. For the time being, she was fine waddling around the lab in his shirts, large and warm and baggy, but with the growing size of her, his shirts were seemingly shrinking, barely covering her ass most of the time.

Not that he was complaining. But he could feel the warm sliver of her skin contrasted with the soft material of one of his old, worn shirts on his palms.

“Marie, you have no obligation to raise this child per anyone else’s expectations,” he assured, and she looked up at him.

“Yeah?”

“Yes. If you want to find a mohel after Ein is born or want them to have a bar or bat mitzvah, and observe Shabbat and Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, or go to Temple, or read the Torah or go to Hebrew School, my mother will be delighted. But it’s up to you.”

“You don’t have a preference?”

“I haven’t observed any of the holidays since I was 16.”

“I just…I want to _know_ , you know?”

“I know.”

“And I do some research but…I feel like an outsider.”

Stein gently ran his fingers through her hair, making sure all the sugar was off of them before he did so, and Marie leaned into his touch, his lab coat fluttering around her. “Who cares if you are?” he pointed out. “You’re an insider to me. And you cook well, so my mother would surely approve.” Marie’s entire face lit up.

“They were good?”

“Mm,” he replied. “You haven’t tried one?”

“Don’t be a jerk! I recall that _someone_ took the whole plate.”

“What a thief,” he joked, and just like that Marie was in a better mood, pushing at his shoulder.

Marie giggled, finally wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her cheek against his chest. She was small, always was, always would be, but somehow fit against him perfectly, and he continued running his hands through her hair, wondering how she envisioned the morning going. Certainly not like this, with such heavy topics as to how to raise Ein. He’d already taught Marie some Yiddish, Hebrew, too, mostly because she asked and wanted to impress his Mother and Nana, who loved her like ducks loved water.

“What other recipes have you managed to beg off my relatives, by the way?”

“You’ll see,” she teased, moving away, finally. “But only if you light the menorah?”

“Bribing me to celebrate Hanukkah. Astounding.” Marie gently bat her eyelashes at him in an over exaggerated display and he finally let one corner of his lip slip upward. “Fine. I remember the blessing, anyway. If you’re trying to win favor with my mother, it’s working.”

“What about brownie points with you?” she asked innocently, reaching up to play with the lapels of his lab coat.

“You hoard those,” he admitted. “Sole owner.”

Marie grinned. “Good. I’m collecting a surplus. Never know when I might need to cash them in full.”

Stein only hummed, curling down to let her kiss at his scarred and rough cheek. He hadn’t shaved, yet, a fact Marie seemed particularly happy about, judging by her wavelength, and when she turned slightly, he rubbed his cheek against hers, making her squeal slightly.

“Oy! You’re gonna give me rug burn!”

“Oy, hm? You’ve been around my family too much.”

“Shut up,” Marie replied, grinning and poking at his chest.

“Remember, if they call you a shiksa, you have permission to punch them.”

“I’m not going to punch your family members, Frank!” Marie said, simply.

“Shame. I was going to live vicariously through you.”

Marie rolled her eye once more, wriggling out of Stein’s arms to finally pick up one of the sufganiyot, and he watched as she bit in, sugar coming over her lips and slightly over her top. Looking around, it felt. . .familiar, but in a distant way. The kind that reminded him of a time he’d walked from, a link he never truly severed, but had frayed.

But, aside from the menorah and the gelt and the food, it was Marie, most of all, that felt welcome. He knew, no matter what her choice to raise Ein, they wouldn’t be any worse off. Slowly, he leaned against the counter next to her, snatching another donut off the plate, and enjoying the moment.

It was her, more than anything else, that was _home._

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY HANUKKAH!


End file.
